Matt Ridley

General Information
Matt Ridley is an English science writer, journalist, zoologist and businessman. He was born in Northumberland, in the North East of England, in 1958. Ridley is most famous for his books, which mainly focus on evolution and genetics, but he has also written for the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian, New Scientist, New Statesman, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. In 1983, he joined the Economist as science correspondent and, by 1992, he had worked his way up through the ranks (becoming science and technology editor and then Washington correspondent) until 1992, when he held the position of American editor.

Ridley was educated at Eton College and went on to study zoology at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first. He stayed on at Oxford to complete his zoology doctorate in 1983. He has an honourary Doctorate of Science from Buckingham University 2003 He is the nephew of the former Conservative Party politician Nicholas Ridley

He has held directorships at Northern Investors (1994-present) and the International Centre for Life, in Newcastle, (1996-2003). Ridley is former chairman of Northern Rock Plc (2004-2007) and Northern 2 Venture (1999-present).

Ridley sits on the advisory councils of the British lobby groups Sense About Science and Reform

Northern Rock
The failure of Northern Rock was the first run on a British Bank since 1878. Under his chairmanship, the bank pursued what the Treasury select committee later described as a "high-risk, reckless business strategy". MPs identified the directors of Northern Rock as "the principal authors of the difficulties that the company has faced". They singled Ridley out for having failed "to provide against the risks that [Northern Rock] was taking and to act as an effective restraining force on the strategy of the executive members".

Associations
Matt Ridley is on the Academic Advisory Council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation

Books

 * Warts and All; Penguin, 1989
 * The Red Queen; Penguin, 1993
 * Down to Earth; Institute of Economic Affairs, 1995
 * Down to Earth II; Institute of Economic Affairs, 1996
 * The Origins of Virtue; Penguin, 1996
 * The future of disease; Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997
 * Genome; 4th Estate, 1999
 * Best American Science Writing (editor); Harper Collins 2002
 * Nature via Nurture; Harper Collins, 2003
 * Francis Crick; Harper Collins, 2006
 * The Rational Optimist, 2010

Prizes and awards

 * Welch Prize for best zoology degree, Oxford University 1979
 * Glaxo science writer’s award for best science article1983
 * Aventis prize for science books (short-listed four times)
 * Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction (short-listed) 2000
 * Los Angeles Times Book Award (short-listed) 2001
 * National Academies Book Award 2004
 * Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1999)
 * Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2003)
 * Visiting Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2002)
 * Honorary doctorate of science, Buckingham University
 * Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford
 * Honorary President, the International Centre for Life

Links

 * "The Genome Changes Eveything": A Talk with Matt Ridley http://www.edge.org/video/dsl/ridley.html
 * Matt Ridley's climate science based on weak foundations http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/04/matt-ridleys-argument-based-on-weak-foundations
 * Interview on Massive Change Radio in January 2004 http://www.renegademedia.info/media/radio-mp3/Matt_Ridley.mp3
 * "We've never had it so good - and it's all thanks to science" - article in the Guardian, April 3, 2003 http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/opinion/story/0,12981,928170,00.html
 * Matt Ridley's website http://www.mattridley.co.uk/
 * Biography and video for the Edge Foundation http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/ridley.html

Criticisms

 * Howard Friel, "Serial Mistake-Makers on Climate Change: On Bjorn Lomborg and Matt Ridley", Znet, June 14, 2010.
 * George Monbiot"" Matt Ridley's Rational Optimist is telling the rich what they want to hear
 * George Monbiot"" Ridleyed With Errors
 * George Monbiot"" Libertarians are the True Social Parasites
 * George Monbiot, "The Man Who Wants to Northern Rock the Planet, Posted June 1, 2010.

Resources and articles
Matt Ridley's climate science based on weak foundations http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2011/04/matt-ridleys-argument-based-on-weak-foundations

Related Sourcewatch
Global Warming Policy Foundation